Patriot's Day:The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Electronic voting)

[kster]

by Nancy Tobi

SNIP...Then Secretary Gardner explained how we do all of our recounts by hand. How we count the ballots and examine them when necessary for voter intent. And how the paper ballots, the counting, the examination for voter intent, all of it, is done out in the open, in public view. He said that the thing about our hand recounts is that when they are done, people have seen everything. They've seen the ballots; they've seen them be counted. They have a comfort level in that, and they believe in the outcome.

He then said something so profound that the implication of what he said still resounds within me.

The thing with machines, he said, is that people want to trust them. But when the machine makes a mistake, people are unforgiving. They don't know if it was a mistake, or if it was intentional. And they never trust that machine again. They are unforgiving and they lose faith.

But when a person makes a mistake, people forgive that person. They expect humans to make mistakes, and they continue to trust each other even after they make mistakes.

And this is the crux of it.

Once we stop trusting in our elections, we lose our freedom. Once we stop believing in the legitimacy of the outcome, it is no longer legitimate

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nancy_to_061229_patriot_s_day_3a_the_r.htm

[livvy]

1. I really enjoyed this article. You posted my favorite part of it.

This was good also:
"He told the history that many years ago led him to believe that you can't run true elections without voter marked paper ballots. This was the story of what I believe was the one and only paperless recount that he conducted. It was one of the first, if not the first, recounts he oversaw upon taking office. The recount was conducted on some kind of voting machine that had the numbers like tumblers adding up the votes cast, and displaying those numbers in the back of the machine. The recount, he told us, consisted of a bunch of people staring at the numbers displayed by the machine.

The mental picture he drew for us had us laughing out loud at this image.

And in fact, at the time, it was so ridiculous to him, that he got rid of those machines and saw to it that New Hampshire passed laws so that no machine can be used in the state unless it can read paper ballots marked by the voters."

[kster]

2. I agree, but as we have witnessed

even if the ballot counting machines make a mistake, we are not able to view the secret proprietary vote counting machines. So even with the "read paper ballots marked by the voters' unless they are the ballot of record, it all gets stuck up our -ss.

Which ballot count is the ballot of record, the count that checks for mistakes? Or the count that only ES&S gets to see? :)

[livvy]

3. Well, we know which should be the ballot of record. n/t

[lostnotforgotten]

4. I Invested 1,000 Hours Of My Life In The Martin Frost Congressional Race

In 2004 just to watch the ES&S voting machines flip the votes in Dallas county to Republicans.

The Democrats did nothing, the machines are still in service.

I will never invest 1,000 hours of my life for political causes again when the election system is so obviously rigged.